COMELY, Richard (1950-)

Richard Comely attributes Captain Canuck’s particular place in comics history to the fact that in 1975, his book was the only full-color self-published book distributed to the mass market. But of course, the character’s status as Canada’s premiere superhero didn’t hurt its legacy either. “Media and public attention has been tremendous for the series since it appeared in 1975,” Comely said. “’Canada Post’ put Captain Canuck on a stamp (1995), he appeared on the cover of ‘Time’ magazine (1997) and a number of other Canadian publications. I think all this demonstrates that Canadians love having their own superhero. After all, superheroes started with Superman and half of the creative team of Superman was Canadian born Joe Shuster.”